1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid jet head chip, a manufacturing method therefor, a liquid jet head, and a liquid jet recording apparatus having the liquid jet head.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is used an inkjet recording apparatus (liquid jet recording apparatus), which jets liquid, e.g., ink from nozzle holes (liquid jet holes) of a head chip (liquid jet head chip) so that ink drops are placed on a recording medium, to thereby print characters, images or the like. Each of the nozzle holes of the head chip is coupled to a piezoelectric actuator (liquid feeding portion). The piezoelectric actuator is provided with a plurality of groove portions (channels) in which the ink is filled. When a drive electrode that is provided to a partition for parting the groove portion is energized, the partition is deformed to squeeze out the ink so that the ink drop jets out from the nozzle hole, to thereby perform printing on the recording medium.
Here, it is common to use a diamond blade called “dicer” for grinding an actuator plate so as to form the groove portion of the piezoelectric actuator in a dicing step (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 05-269995 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-271305). For instance, as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 05-269995, the groove portion of the piezoelectric actuator formed by grinding with the dicer has a width of approximately 60 to 86 μm.
Recently, the liquid jet recording apparatus such as the inkjet recording apparatus described above is required to improve resolution of characters and symbols printed on the recording medium so that higher resolution (higher definition) is achieved.
Here, in order to increase resolution of the inkjet recording apparatus, it is conceivable, for example, to decrease a pitch of the groove portions of the piezoelectric actuator. In order to decrease a pitch of the groove portion, it is conceivable to use a dicer that is as thin (small width) as possible to grind the actuator plate.
However, the thickness (width) of the dicer to be used in the dicing process has a limitation for securing strength or the like of the dicer, and hence there is a limitation in decreasing a pitch of the groove portion.
In addition, it is also conceivable to decrease a width of the partition in order to decrease a pitch of the groove portion.
However, if the width of the partition is decreased, the partition may be broken. In order to decrease the width of the partition, high accuracy of machining is required, which causes difficulty in machining. As a result, yield cannot be improved, and there may be a case where the machining cannot be performed.
Thus, it is difficult to decrease a pitch of the groove portion further in the future.